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GREENSBORO — Fourteen-year-old Rose Lawson says some of her classmates dislike the police or are afraid to talk with them.

The eighth-grader and peer mediator at Mendenhall Middle School said she was never scared of police officers, but she had her “iffies about them.”

So, she joined a new youth council to hear the officers’ point of view about policing Greensboro youth.

The Citizens Youth Council of Leadership Excellence, a partnership between Greensboro police and community leaders, hopes to empower youth by giving them a voice to express concerns about youth-related issues.

Through mentoring and informal workshops, adult organizers want to foster mutual respect between youth and the police.

Andrea Wright, co-founder of Warriors Inc., a nonprofit for women and children, is one of the adult mentors for the teens.

“It’s going to be wonderful,” Wright said of the program. “We have some young people that have different ideas or perceptions of why the officers are in their school. I think it’s an opportunity to have an open dialogue between the officers and the students.”

Lawson attended a discussion with local radio personality Busta Brown in summer 2008 and heard a boy say that he was walking down the street when a police officer approached him for no reason.

“That’s why he started not liking them,” she said.

But Lawson then recalled an officer’s take on the situation: “Well, they have to do that just to be safe. You never know a group of people.”

After talking with police and school resource officers at CYCLE, Lawson knows that they want to become better acquainted with people in a neighborhood to improve how they do their job.

The youth council started receiving applications in the spring, but not enough to complete a council of 12.

The group is looking for youth in eighth through 12th grades: two students from each of the four police districts and four alternates. Students don’t have to have the best grades or the most extracurricular activities.

“We’re looking for the children that are maybe not the ones that are already involved in activities in school,” Wright said, “but those that have potential but maybe are not always able to get in with other groups.”

The council meets the second Tuesday of each month at 5:30 p.m. at the police department’s eastern division substation, 1106 Maple St.

The group has met twice since September and will meet again this Tuesday.

Police Chief Tim Bellamy, division commanders and school resource officers have attended council meetings.

“It’s just good to know that (the youth) want to have some type of relationship with a police department,” Bellamy said.

Rose’s mother, Aretha Lawson, appreciates the non-critical atmosphere CYCLE provides for youth who may not have other outlets of expression.

“I let my daughter know, 'You have a voice, use it.’ If you have a problem and you feel like you can’t come to me,” she said, “there are other adults to talk to.”

Contact Dioni L. Wise at 373-7090 or dioni.wise@news-record.com